Retard strength shall overcome limp wristed pseudo intellectualism!
(Oh shit I'm a limp wristed pseudo intellectual)
(Oh shit I'm a limp wristed pseudo intellectual)
I set about reading The Republic before commenting, because in fact I've never read it, and only knew anything about it through cliffs notes versions and cultural osmosis.
One thing that struck me immediately was the trait of the format of the dialog for people to sit there dumbly agreeing with all kinds of statements that seem like they should be quite arguable. "Yes," "Quite," "There can be no doubt" -- but at least to me as a reader in this postmodern era many of the things he agrees with himself about are not so agreeable.
Another thing that's clear is that ancient Greece is a much different world than today. One of the lines that stuck with me was essentially "So clearly it is just to do the will of your ruler?" and that was one of the uncontested statements where for the past 70 years that's a highly contested statement.
Because of all that, the first book spends a lot of time laying out the core concept of what is just, and I don't think it really succeeds to the degree it must in order to have a foundation for what comes next. Far be it from me than to dismiss one of the most influential philosophers of all time, it might be because I've got a fundamentally different set of cultural assumptions than he might having lived in a society with an additional 2000 years of philosophical development on a completely different tack.
Another thing that seems like an anarchronism to me is Plato's constant reference to "God" or even "The Gods" in a highly judeo-christian manner starting around book 2, as a perfect being who does only good. That seems at odds with the conception of the Greek gods as portrayed as quite fallible and more human. I wonder what the original text might have said, since it seems odd for such an anachronism to exist.
Book 3 spends a lot of time talking about censorship for raising children, and almost comes off as a satire of censorious old men who think they know better than the culture that created them. The concept I think doesn't pass muster, and this is where I came to understand that the current empirical method of understanding the world is quite different than the way the Greeks would have approached things. If we rely on reality as arbiter of truth, then a lot of these nice sounding ideas fall apart. We know for example that a child who is raised to never drink alcohol will not become a teetotaler, but instead upon reaching adulthood will often be consumed with the drink, having not been prepared for the vice in the slightest. In the same way, if you never expose a child to the concept of weakness or people overcoming weakness, then the moment their censor is gone the child may be overcome. I think that's not just relevant back then but today as our cultural censors foolishly try the same thing.
Another interesting thing is that Plato predicts the creation of the modern professional military by rightly pointing out that trained soldiers are in fact better warriors than rich people. On the other hand, rich Athens, buoyed by the Dorian League, was able to use its wealth to rival Sparta because the latter relied on soldiers, the former relied on a powerful and expensive navy. The Spartans were unmatched on land, but the Athenians were unmatched on sea, and so the two had a long stalemate.
His concept that a person can only do one thing is just not true. He mentions actors and that one can only do comedy or tragedy, but some of the greatest comedy actors of all time are also great tragedy actors. Similarly, people can do multiple things and in fact be enriched in both by their diversity of talents.
In Book 4, we hear absurdities like "a just man would never lie" or "A just man would never fail to meet their religious commitments", but that would seem to suggest (and I think they explicitly say it earlier) that wealth and power help a man be just. I think they push back a little on these statements, but I think there's a whole world of importance in these arguments. I've always said you don't find out who a person is during the good times but during the bad, and a "just" person who meets their commitments because they have enough time and resources to do so may become quite "unjust" if there's a famine or if something else comes up in their lives. One could also be just by being miserly with your attentions and refusing to commit to nearly anything lest you be considered unjust. Indeed, it may be much more just to commit to trying to help out your fellows with your limited resources and sometimes failing.
Jumping ahead a bit because I stopped taking so many notes, book 7 seems to lay out the concept of the forms. Some people may interpret this as being a sort of literal thing where there is a perfect form of something the the aether, but I interpreted it as being a metaphor for the idealized thing that exists in our minds, at least as presented.
7 and a good chunk of 8 seem to be dedicated to laying out why the philosopher would make the greatest leader, and of course the philosopher would say that -- but the greek philosopher lives so much in the abstract that I can't say for sure that such a philosopher would actually be a wise and just leader. I can imagine a famine striking and the philosopher would patiently explain how the people are being unjust by demanding so much food without having the means to pay for it.
I really enjoyed the analysis of different forms of government and the sort of child who would grow up and to form those governments. Whether it's accurate or not (and it seems to be awfully on the nose to say for sure), it presented things in a way that was digestible and thought provoking.
I finished book 10, but I can't say I fully understood it yet. It was the most dense with metaphors I didn't catch, and as such I think I'll need to go back to it again when I can focus on trying to match up all the references to Greek myth.
Everything I've written is just surface level thoughts, I could read the book this quickly and digest some of it, but this isn't at all a deep analysis or a view into themes. But now that I've at least read The Republic I can move onwards to trying to understand your article, which would have just been words on a screen without at least a cursory glance at the source material.
One thing that struck me immediately was the trait of the format of the dialog for people to sit there dumbly agreeing with all kinds of statements that seem like they should be quite arguable. "Yes," "Quite," "There can be no doubt" -- but at least to me as a reader in this postmodern era many of the things he agrees with himself about are not so agreeable.
Another thing that's clear is that ancient Greece is a much different world than today. One of the lines that stuck with me was essentially "So clearly it is just to do the will of your ruler?" and that was one of the uncontested statements where for the past 70 years that's a highly contested statement.
Because of all that, the first book spends a lot of time laying out the core concept of what is just, and I don't think it really succeeds to the degree it must in order to have a foundation for what comes next. Far be it from me than to dismiss one of the most influential philosophers of all time, it might be because I've got a fundamentally different set of cultural assumptions than he might having lived in a society with an additional 2000 years of philosophical development on a completely different tack.
Another thing that seems like an anarchronism to me is Plato's constant reference to "God" or even "The Gods" in a highly judeo-christian manner starting around book 2, as a perfect being who does only good. That seems at odds with the conception of the Greek gods as portrayed as quite fallible and more human. I wonder what the original text might have said, since it seems odd for such an anachronism to exist.
Book 3 spends a lot of time talking about censorship for raising children, and almost comes off as a satire of censorious old men who think they know better than the culture that created them. The concept I think doesn't pass muster, and this is where I came to understand that the current empirical method of understanding the world is quite different than the way the Greeks would have approached things. If we rely on reality as arbiter of truth, then a lot of these nice sounding ideas fall apart. We know for example that a child who is raised to never drink alcohol will not become a teetotaler, but instead upon reaching adulthood will often be consumed with the drink, having not been prepared for the vice in the slightest. In the same way, if you never expose a child to the concept of weakness or people overcoming weakness, then the moment their censor is gone the child may be overcome. I think that's not just relevant back then but today as our cultural censors foolishly try the same thing.
Another interesting thing is that Plato predicts the creation of the modern professional military by rightly pointing out that trained soldiers are in fact better warriors than rich people. On the other hand, rich Athens, buoyed by the Dorian League, was able to use its wealth to rival Sparta because the latter relied on soldiers, the former relied on a powerful and expensive navy. The Spartans were unmatched on land, but the Athenians were unmatched on sea, and so the two had a long stalemate.
His concept that a person can only do one thing is just not true. He mentions actors and that one can only do comedy or tragedy, but some of the greatest comedy actors of all time are also great tragedy actors. Similarly, people can do multiple things and in fact be enriched in both by their diversity of talents.
In Book 4, we hear absurdities like "a just man would never lie" or "A just man would never fail to meet their religious commitments", but that would seem to suggest (and I think they explicitly say it earlier) that wealth and power help a man be just. I think they push back a little on these statements, but I think there's a whole world of importance in these arguments. I've always said you don't find out who a person is during the good times but during the bad, and a "just" person who meets their commitments because they have enough time and resources to do so may become quite "unjust" if there's a famine or if something else comes up in their lives. One could also be just by being miserly with your attentions and refusing to commit to nearly anything lest you be considered unjust. Indeed, it may be much more just to commit to trying to help out your fellows with your limited resources and sometimes failing.
Jumping ahead a bit because I stopped taking so many notes, book 7 seems to lay out the concept of the forms. Some people may interpret this as being a sort of literal thing where there is a perfect form of something the the aether, but I interpreted it as being a metaphor for the idealized thing that exists in our minds, at least as presented.
7 and a good chunk of 8 seem to be dedicated to laying out why the philosopher would make the greatest leader, and of course the philosopher would say that -- but the greek philosopher lives so much in the abstract that I can't say for sure that such a philosopher would actually be a wise and just leader. I can imagine a famine striking and the philosopher would patiently explain how the people are being unjust by demanding so much food without having the means to pay for it.
I really enjoyed the analysis of different forms of government and the sort of child who would grow up and to form those governments. Whether it's accurate or not (and it seems to be awfully on the nose to say for sure), it presented things in a way that was digestible and thought provoking.
I finished book 10, but I can't say I fully understood it yet. It was the most dense with metaphors I didn't catch, and as such I think I'll need to go back to it again when I can focus on trying to match up all the references to Greek myth.
Everything I've written is just surface level thoughts, I could read the book this quickly and digest some of it, but this isn't at all a deep analysis or a view into themes. But now that I've at least read The Republic I can move onwards to trying to understand your article, which would have just been words on a screen without at least a cursory glance at the source material.
If I were in NY, I would have long ago started doing whatever I need in order to move.
When it's cold that's not evidence of climate change, but when it's warm it is.
Because there's nothing fallacious about that logic.
Because there's nothing fallacious about that logic.
Remember when he locked up the media, charged his political opponents, filled the capitol with armed military and had that strange rally surrounded by soldiers against a blood red backdrop?
We can't say for sure except for all the people who wrote books bragging about what they did.
Given that Plato believed in the forms, I totally believe he'd be in the "real communism has never been tried" camp.
They seem to forget in all their excitement over the 14th amendment that there was a mass insurrection for 6 months and they were out fundraising for it.
The answer is don't.
Why do you care about something going on somewhere you'll never been 500 miles from?
Unless it's entertaining, it's a distraction from the real stuff in front of you -- and people in power want you to try to save the world so you don't save yourself.
Why do you care about something going on somewhere you'll never been 500 miles from?
Unless it's entertaining, it's a distraction from the real stuff in front of you -- and people in power want you to try to save the world so you don't save yourself.
https://vxtwitter.com/townhallcom/status/1744427445946560846?t=Fl98nmCFYTT8STg1GWBnrA&s=19
CNN debates whether Biden should go "full Hitler".
CNN debates whether Biden should go "full Hitler".
